Share This Post

Sunny 104.5 Signs-Off

August 10, 2006 will go down as one of the most historical days in Philadelphia radio history. At Noon, Clear Channel blew up the formats of two of their five FM stations simultaneously.

While Smooth Jazz was disappearing from 106.1 WJJZ, 104.5 WSNI was saying goodbye to its Gold based AC format. In both of their places appeared Rhythmic AC “Philly’s 106.1”. It wasn’t a simlucast persay, as FCC regulations forbid two stations with identical coverage from duplicating so much programming, however the same songs played in the same order with different sweepers and commercials leading to the music not lining up completely. The purpose of the so-called “shadowcast” was to get Sunny 104.5’s audience to move over to the new 106.1 format before the debut of 104.5’s new format on August 23.

The second version of Sunny 104.5 (AC oldies [the first version, which was mainstream soft AC, lasted from 1980 to 1990]) was blown up in favor of Rumba 104.5 (Spanish), only to become Radio 104.5 (modern rock) a year-and-three-quarters later.

From the last 1:20, it sounds like stunting leading up to Spanish-formatted Rumba 104.5. That is, considering that another English-language song–“Let’s Get It Started” by the Black Eyed Peas–was being played and that it was followed by a woman saying, “Uh, okay, what’s goin’ on here? Wow, this is like having my own radio station!” Sheesh!, you’d flippin’ think Sunny 104-5 had just stinkin’ switched to a “playing what we want” Adult Hits format (i.e. WBEN-FM Philadelphia, aka 95.7 (pronounced “ninety-five seven”) Ben FM)!!